#31 hours

Sweetheart our love was made to last.

I might recycle it later or even scrap what I have now in favor of this, but for now, here. gays be upon ye:

How Ghost knew the librarian behind the counter was Soap in disguise was another one of those mysteries he would likely never have an answer to. It was the same town, they hadn’t moved; He genuinely just wanted to peruse their books to see if anything caught his eye.

Instead, he walked in and knew that the face of the man behind the counter was a farce. And just like their first meet, he froze, his instincts getting jumbled in the presence of the god.

The god smiled back at him with a stupid shit-eating grin, “Hello! How can I help you today?”

Ghost looked at him with something hedging on a glare, not quite malicious but so full of distrust it might as well have been.

His stare didn’t break even as the bell jingled behind him, signaling someone else entered. The person paused, likely expecting him to move, before they shuffled around him with a huff of annoyance. The inhuman thing behind the counter put on a good approximation of a customer service smile as they grabbed the book the other had been returning.

They exchanged pleasantries and the person looked to the bookshelves before glancing at Ghost, making some excuse as they hurried back out the door.

The other smile was back as Soap admonished, “Come now, you’re scaring the customers.”

Ghost was at a loss, not knowing if he should call him out or continue on as if nothing was wrong. It seemed the latter was what the god wanted, so obviously he decided to be an ass, “You’re a public library. You have patrons, not customers.”

“It’s my first day on the job. Can you blame me?”

“Yes. Yes, I can.”

The god did a weird mix of a scoff and a laugh, continuing the ruse, “Well, how can I help you?”

Ghost was already tired of his tomfoolery, “You can tell me why you’re here.”

“I’m a librarian!” He said, almost excited as he gestured to the rest of the building. “I work here!”

Ghost hesitantly walked forward, coming to terms with the fact that this was indeed how he was going to spend the rest of his day. Now closer, he noticed at least one small thing that was wrong with the god’s disguise. He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands in annoyance as he pointed out, “You couldn’t even get the fingers right.”

“What?” Soap looked down to his hands in confusion, trying to spot the problem.

“You’re missing a finger.” Ghost pointed to where his pinky should have been on his left hand.

“Wait, no, you don’t have that finger either!” The god sounded indignant and Ghost was trying not to laugh, realizing that Soap had tried to model them after his hands.

“Yes, mine was amputated. Which is why I have a scar. Yours is just missing.” Ghost didn’t bother pulling off his glove for proof, just holding up his hand. If he didn’t understand anatomy, Ghost really didn’t feel like explaining burn scars.

“Well…” The god was grasping at straws, squinting as he tried to think, “Some… Uh— Yeah! Some humans are born that way!” He said it like now Ghost had no option other than to believe he was human, tacking on very unsurely, “How dare you! Being rude— That’s not— It’s mean!”

Ghost would give him credit, it was an almost okay-ish defense, “But if you were born with it missing, your fifth metacarpal would be missing too and your palm would be smaller.”

Soap looked even more confused and utterly defeated as he muttered to himself, “What the fuck is a metacarpal?” He stared at his hands as if he could look close enough into his palms to find the answer.